Parisian Lights
by lydiamaartin
Summary: They don't call it the city of love for nothing. And in the summer before senior year, Quinn Fabray finds out why. - AU - QuinnJesse - drabble collection
1. encounter

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except my ideas.**

**Note: This will become AU; as of now, it takes place the summer before senior year/season 3, before Quinn dyed her hair pink and went crazy. These drabbles will be a connected story of what happened that summer to Quinn in Paris.  
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**Dedicated without hesitation to Hope (AccioHope), because it's her birthday today. Happy birthday, Hope; I love you and thank you for converting me to this pairing! :D**

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><p>Paris.<p>

The city of love.

Funny, Quinn muses, stopping on the sidewalk and tilting her head to look up at the Eiffel Tower looming above her, because she doesn't at all feel very loving right now.

It's a beautiful sight, no doubt. With the sunset streaking the sky in shades of honey-gold and swirls of pink behind it, the Eiffel Tower rises from the ground, as majestically and magnificently as ever, and there are tourists lining the sidewalk with slack jaws at the beauty of the image.

Quinn doesn't care much for beauty anymore, though.

She turns, ready to walk back to the café her mother is waiting in. Instead of a quick walk down two blocks, she runs into someone – someone tall, strong, and decidedly male, judging from the body suddenly pressing hers against the sidewalk.

"Ow!" she grumbles, ready to lay into whoever dared run her over, when she looks up and finds herself staring into oddly familiar brown eyes. "Wh—what?" she asks, mystified at the appearance of someone who'd never really been a part of her life here in Paris. "You – you're – "

He scrambles up off her and offers her a hand up with a charming smile on his face that she knows better than to fall for. "Hello, Quinn. Fancy meeting you here."

Quinn slowly gets to her feet, staring with wide eyes at none other than Jesse St. James.

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><p><strong>AN: I should really stop making more drabble collections, huh? But I can't seem to write a proper, full-length fic thanks to NaNo, so here's my way of getting around that, by only writing short drabbles at a time :P I really hope you all enjoyed this, and if you did, please review! It would make my day!**

**And don't favorite/alert without reviewing, please and thank you.  
><strong>


	2. confrontation

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"I'm on a vacation," he informs her with all of his usual annoying charm. "What, may I ask, are _you_ doing here?"

Quinn smooths down the flyaway strands of her blond hair and summons a scowl of irritation for him. Who the hell does he think he is to run her over while she's supposed to be enjoying her Glee-free summer and then _patronize_ her? "I'm on a vacation, too, as a matter of fact," she tells him primly, crossing her arms. "Who are you here with, then?"

Jesse smirks. "Quinn, m'dear, I'm a legal adult. I don't need my parents babysitting me while I'm visiting Paris, y'know."

Quinn takes a breath and forces herself not to rise to his obvious bait. "So, you're here alone. And you could afford the money from your salary of…being a college dropout, I suppose?"

_That_ makes his irritatingly ever-present grin drop. "I have a _job_, thank you very much."

"Oh, do you?" Quinn smiles pleasantly, making it a point not to ask him what his job is, even though he clearly wants her to. "Well, then, enjoy your stay in Paris. With any luck, I'll never run into you again."

Jesse still doesn't move out of her way, instead eyeing her thoughtfully as she grows more and more impatient. Finally, he speaks, and it's not quite the scathing insult she had expected.

"Want to go to the café?"

Quinn blinks at him, thoroughly caught off guard. "Um… I was actually headed there now," she murmurs in confusion.

Jesse grins. "Great, I'll walk you," he says, and then starts walking in the direction of the café, leaving her to trail behind. It's almost funny how quickly his mood had changed.

Quinn shakes her head and fixes a glare to the back of his head just on principle. He'd _run her over_.

It _is_ funny, though. Almost.

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><p><strong>an: thanks so much to everyone who reviewed; I really appreciate it! :) If you're reading this far, kindly drop me a review to let me know what you thought? It'd be super appreciated! :D**

**And don't favorite/alert without reviewing, please and thank you.  
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	3. charming

Mrs. Fabray is giggling like a school girl. Quinn is not amused.

After all, _she's_ the school girl here. And Jesse isn't _that_ funny. Much to Quinn's annoyance, though, he's managed to thoroughly charm her mother in a matter of _minutes_.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" she finally interrupts, glaring at him over her glass of iced tea, before he gets started on another hilarious (not really) story from his days at UCLA. "A hotel, a party, a date – anything?"

Jesse turns his smirk on her. "Oh, isn't _this_ a date, Quinn?" he asks, lounging indolently in the armchair across from her. "I mean, I'm here, at a café in the city of love with a beautiful girl – two, in fact," he adds, winking at her smiling mother. "What part of this isn't a date?"

"Uh, the part where I don't like you," Quinn snaps, ignoring her mother's knowing look. "You _ran me over_."

"I also complimented you at prom, even though you came with my self-proclaimed nemesis," Jesse points out, looking ridiculously earnest. "Doesn't that count for _anything_, Quinn? Anything at all?"

"Oh, my God, shut up."

His smirk returns. "I like you, too, Quinn," he informs her cheerfully, before returning to his conversation with her mother as if she had never interrupted in the first place. Quinn sits in her chair, stirring her iced tea with a spoon and fuming silently as she watches him regale her mother with probably fake stories about a fire in the theatre.

After a moment, it occurs to her to wonder why he likes saying her name so much.

It takes her another moment to fully plot out his slow and painful death when he begins telling her mother about his adventures in running her Glee club.

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><p><strong>an: thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! please review this chapter if you read it, as well; it'd make my day! :D**

**And don't favorite/alert without reviewing, thanks.  
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	4. banter

"I think I'm quitting glee club this year," she announces to him randomly in the middle of their walk back to her hotel, mostly because she's tired of seething in silence over the fact that her mother had insisted – _insisted_! – that Jesse walk her home while she went to get a _massage_, of all things.

"Are you?" Jesse raises an eyebrow, but she can't find any other hints of a reaction from him. "Why? Broke up with your boyfriend again?"

Quinn scowls at him. "_No_. I haven't had a boyfriend since Finn, actually, thank you very much. And my love life has nothing to do with my quitting glee."

"Really?" Jesse folds his arms across his chest, his smirk becoming unbearably annoying. "Because your love life had always seemed irrevocably tied to you being in the glee club or not, if you ask me."

Quinn is silent for a moment, trying to figure out what he means. "Excuse me?"

"Well, Rachel said – " He stops after saying Rachel's name, looking like he's kicking himself mentally for bringing her up (Quinn knows that look; she's felt it before). "I mean, I heard you only joined to stay close to Finn in the first place."

She tilts her head. "That was two years ago. I've changed."

"So I see," he murmurs, glancing sidelong at her. His smirk is _almost_ a smile now. "Well, here we are. A five star hotel, huh? Wouldn't have suspected anything less."

"Great," Quinn smiles sweetly at him. "Now you can _get lost_."

Jesse grins, as if her irritation is humorous. "I think I should walk you in. Make sure you don't get kidnapped by men dressed in all black the minute you step into the lobby, and all that."

Quinn gapes at him. "Is there any limit to your stupidity?"

He offers her his arm. "Shall we?"

She doesn't take it, but he walks with her into the lobby anyway.

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><p><strong>an: thanks so much to all those who reviewed! :D if you read this far, kindly drop me a review to let me know what you thought? :)**

**and don't favorite/alert without reviewing, please and thank you!  
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	5. lobby

"Quinn, wait."

She's pretty certain those aren't the words he'd expected to call after her when she turned to leave, but that's what she hears, so she turns around anyway. His dark eyes appear a little startled, but she thinks it's more because he asked her to wait than the fact that she actually did.

"Did you need something?" she asks impatiently, crossing her arms over her chest, but she has to admit, she's not all that annoyed this time. Maybe it's the look in his eyes or the deep breath he takes before he talks, but something's telling her that this isn't one of his normal irritate-Quinn sessions that have been going on the whole day.

"I just…" Jesse swallows. "How's Rachel doing?"

Quinn's eyebrows rise of their own accord. _Rachel_. He's worried about _Rachel_? The same Rachel who made out with another guy (_Finn_, reminds her traitorous brain) in front of him and the entire audience at Nationals? _Really_?

"Fine," she answers curtly, but he casts his gaze down and she decides to elaborate. "She's… she's happy, last I saw her. With – with, uh – "

"With Finn," he supplies dryly. "As always."

Quinn sighs. "I'm sorry." Her feet move instinctively back towards him, tracing the few steps she had just taken away from him.

"It's not your fault," he replies, but he still won't look at her, and the sight of him missing a girl who doesn't even deserve his concern makes her heart ache. How is it he fell for Rachel, anyway? (Why is it everyone falls for Rachel?)

"No, it is," she insists. "If I had just – if I could have held onto Finn, he'd never have – she'd never – and we could both be happy."

"That's stupid," Jesse says immediately. "Hudson is such a monumental idiot, he would have dumped you for Rachel no matter what. You know that. He always wants what he can't have, and he doesn't particularly care if he hurts me or even you in the process."

Quinn tilts her head. "Do you honestly believe that?" she asks skeptically.

Jesse takes a breath. "I'll see you around, Quinn."

Before she can call him back, he turns and leaves the hotel. She wonders if her words are swirling as wildly around in his mind as his are in hers.

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><p><strong>an: thanks so much to all those who reviewed! :) if you could review this chapter as well, that'd be super appreciated! :D**

**and don't favorite/alert without reviewing, please and thank you.  
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